Thursday, February 12, 2009

Me: Two beginning ukulele players (one male, one female) working on songwriting, with basic recording and mixing capability. We are realizing that drums are an essential part of our music and something we currently have neither the equipment nor the basic skills to include in our tracks.

You: Like the music I've mentioned on this blog, and you play the drums or some version of them. You have a way to record drums or percussion along with music from an mp3 track and then send files (of the two together AND eventually of just the drums) over the internets. And you like contests and long walks on the beach.

*****

More detail: Right now Ukulala is a long-distance band. My sister Flora and I live on opposite ends of the country and email music we work on back and forth and mix it around and occasionally have random other people record with us. We basically are looking for somebody out there who wants to have their drums be a part of our music without doing any live shows or actually recording together in the same place. Any percussionist is welcome, although we would prefer that electronic drummers try to sound as natural as possible.

Contest: Since everything on television nowadays is weird reality dating show contests, that's how I'm going to run this. I have put three mp3 files (with links to download) at the bottom of this post. If you think you could add quality drums to ANY ONE (or more) of these, then DO IT and send your completed recording (the original mp3 mixed with the drums) in mp3 format along to me at askukulala@yahoo.com. Please include just a few sentences about your drumming setup and history.

Only the third song (Taken Over) was recorded on a steady beat with a metronome. The others are just freestyle, so if you are using a computer-based system that would be the one to go with.

Feel free to send along more than one option, or drums for both tracks if you would like. Each track will be judged blindly and individually, but versatility is always a virtue and multiple entries in the pool can't hurt your chances.

Judging: The way we judge depends on how many people enter the contest. If there is one person, judging will be easy. If there are more than that, we will probably choose our favorite. If it is close, we MAY put it up online as an internet poll and let THE PEOPLE (that's you!) decide by voting. I am somewhat wary of that because in such a small sample size, someone could skew the vote in their favor just by having lots of loser friends with nothing better to do.

Obviously judging will be very subjective to our tastes and what we want our music to sound like, but I think we will be looking for quality, simplicity, variety, and appropriateness to the musical style. We aren't looking to be a drum-heavy band that drowns the ukulele out with the incessant smashing of loud rock drums. But hey, maybe that would sound awesome..... we won't judge 'til we hear it.

Deadline: I think one month should be more than enough time to get the word out, listen to and download the sample, record something, and send it back in. So the deadline is Thursday, March 12th at midnight.

Prize: Your prize will be to work with us in creating at least our first song to be posted online and possibly in a youtube video. Now, we are just beginners and we do NOT have an audience of "fans", so there is NO notoriety (ZERO, NADA, NONE) involved, but you will be mentioned and linked to at every opportunity for whatever small audience will listen. Make no mistake: this is not a huge prize. You will have to be independently excited for the prospect of making music.

All entries will be posted for everyone to hear once the contest ends, along with your name unless you would like to stay anonymous. If there are lots of entries, I will come up with another more traditional gift or prize for the top 3.

*****

And if you do not play the drums but know someone who does, please send this along! We will judge every entry on merit alone because we want to make awesome music. Children, old people and grotesquely unattractive drummers are all welcome.

Thank you in advance to anyone out there who participates or even thinks real hard about it. Have fun!

4 Comments:

Anonymous
said...

Hello. I am seeking some expert advice on these Koa Ukulele I was just in Oahu and came across this place that has beautiful hand made ukeleles, I'm thinking about ordering one, but I'm not sure about the quality, any opinions..?